See Budapest and die.

It's not unlike preparing for death. Put the papers in a place that folks can find them and go through them easily. Wash the clothes, pack them away, it will be easier to give them away to Goodwill. Do the plaster patching in the kitchen. Finally, after all that stalling. A round of social events, not unlike a visitation. (This is your last chance, soon I will be gone.)

Panic has not set in totally. I still function. I still organize, in part, and I do some purposeful things. I went to get an update on my TB status (required) and now I have to draft a letter for my MD to get him to sign.

Making a master list, revising it from time to time, but plugging along. Except that I am not sleeping well.

OH... Yesterday was a first of a strange sort. My friend Kevin, the fellow who had the Finance Manager job at Craft Alliance before I took it over, was online around 9:45 on Saturday, and we started a chat. Then we agreed to meet for brunch at Billie's, a greasy spoon down on Broadway near Soulard Market. Kevin shows up, looking anorexic as usual (he says he is holding at 136). When he walked in he was wearing a hooded sweat-jacket, and he looked for all the world like a manifestation of the Grim Reaper.

We are open with each other, talking about relationships (failed, potential, promising, and maddening). We spent at least an hour and a half talking and visiting, with Kevin and I both agreeing that the L word is one we are very careful not to use without a great deal of thought (K is all torn up about Jimmy, who is sometimes on, sometimes off, and rarely around. Then he said he was planning on going to a drag show at the Grey Fox that evening around 10, why didn't I join him and his group of friends (which might or might not include Jimmy). So I did. First time at a drag show. I do not know what I was really expecting, but I found out what it was. Not real performance, but lip-synch dance. Silly me, I was expecting to hear live vocals; instead I got head-splitting stuff out of the speakers, and the performers were doing their things as choreography. Which is ok, I guess, and I will admit that I would be unable to pull it off. But it was not for me. I mostly just studied the crowd, a good portion of which seemed to be intent on performing along with the persons on stage. This involved singing along with the performers (I must have been the only person totally unfamiliar with the material), rushing up to wave dollar bills at them, and doing various body motions that seem to be specific to the song being performed.

Was there talent on display? Yes, to some extent, for sure. Clearly the numbers had been rehearsed and refined. But was it art? Or just Gesunkenes Kulturgut?

Jimmy wasn't there. Did Kevin go home with someone else? Can't say. I left after half an hour. I was tired, it was cold, and it just wasn't a place where I felt at home.